Feb 6 - The challenging permanent road course at Sonoma Raceway provided the latest opportunity for Verizon IndyCar Series teams to test their 2018 cars.A dozen drivers turned laps Monday on the undu-lating 2.385-mile circuit in Northern California, including a pair of drivers getting their first taste ofthe universal aero kit all teams are using this season.

IndyCar rookie Wickens said, "This is my first time to Sonoma, so we’re learning ... I love the elevation here.It’s fast, it’s flowing and a completely different track atthe top than at the bottom.”

All IndyCar teams head to Phoenix Raceway for a test Thursday through Saturday. The first day is set aside for rookies, with the latter two days open to all cars. The sessions on the final two days (3-6 and 8-11 p.m. ET)will stream live on racecontrol.indycar.com.

Sebastien Bourdais' car has a new livery.

Vasser Is Back

Jan 6 - A year after his former team, KV Racing Technology, closed up show, Jimmy Vasser has reunited with many of the same cohorts that once made KV oneof the most competitive teams in the paddock.

On Monday, Vasser announced that he and longtime business partner James Sullivan had forged an alliance with Dale Coyne on a joint entry for this year's IndyCar Series that will see former KV star Sebastian Bourdaisrace under the banner of Dale Coyne Racing with Vasser-Sullivan. Along with Bourdais, there will be a number of familiar faces at DCRVS, including Olivier Boisson, who not only served at Bourdais' race engineer last year but also worked with Bourdais, Vasser and Sullivan at KV and helped them win four races in three seasons.

"It's putting the band back together to a certain extent," a delighted Vasser told IndyStar Monday from Sonoma Raceway, where the team was testing.

Even though he was only out of IndyCar for a year, that'sa year longer than he wanted to be away and the longest stretch he could remember over the past three decades.

A rookie in 1992, Vasser drove in at least one Indy carrace every year until 2006 and had become a team co-owner two years earlier. The 1996 CART champion said being away from the sport for so long this past year definitely made him realize there how much he missed it.

Sebastien Bourdais and Jimmy Vasser

IndyCar Scholarship Extends Reach

Feb 7 - The third Mazda Road to Indy USF2000 $200K Scholarship Shootout will extend its reach to include 11 countries, from which 20 champions of junior open-wheel and karting will compete in the December event.

Drivers between the ages of 14 and 25 by September 30of this year will be eligible to earn an invitation to the competition via a network of Official Feeder Series inboth North and South America as well as Europe, Asia, Australasia and, for the first time, the continent of Africa.

This expansion means over 400 drivers will be chasingan entry ticket for the $200,000 prize from Mazda to ensure entry into the 2019 Cooper Tires USF2000 Championship Powered by Mazda.

A total of 18 champions will earn an automatic entry tothe shootout from the various Official Feeder Series,which in 2018 for the first time will include the NACAM Formula 4 Championship in Mexico, the South African Investchem Formula 1600 Championship and the Toyo Tires F1600 Championship in Canada.

Oliver Askew, the 2016 winner, went on to win the USF2000 title last year, earning graduation to Pro Mazda this season, and 2017 Shootout winner Keith Donegangets a similar chance on the first step of the Mazda Road To Indy this year.

Kyle Kimball, manager of operations for Mazda Motorsports, declared: “The level of interest in the Scholarship Shootout from around the world is incred-ible, and we are excited to welcome three new championships to the program. “Last year we again witnessed an extraordinary amount of talent at the Shootout. We will be following all of the series throughout the year and look forward to welcoming their champions at season’s end.”

Toyo Tires F1600 series coordinator Brian Grahamsaid: “We are delighted to join the many championships from around the world as an official feeder series to theMazda Road to Indy Shootout program. What theMazda Road to Indy has created with the scholarshipsis widely recognized as the best opportunity in open-wheel racing.”

In addition, five series in the U.S. and Mexico will be eligible for at-large entry tickets to the Shootout, issuedat the discretion of Mazda, and eKartingNews.com will continue to select one up-and-coming kart racer as the recipient of a 2018 Shootout entry ticket.

Feb 7 - New Formula 1 owners, American company Liberty Media, is scrapping grid girls from the F1 shows.

Formula 1 managing director of commercial operations, Sean Bratches, said, “While the practice of employinggrid girls has been a staple of Formula 1 Grands Prix for decades, we feel this custom does not resonate with our brand values."

That's like taking the Ring Girls out of boxing!

In a laughable attempt to assuage F1 fans, Liberty Mediahas launched the "grid kids" initiative - replaceing thegirls on the grid with children. These kids must be competing in either junior formula or in go-karts. The young people will be selected either by their motorsport clubs or by a lottery.

First IndyCar Cockpit ProtectionTest

Feb 9 - Formula 1 will begin using the 3 pointed"halo" on their race cars this year to protect drivers from things such as flying debris.

IndyCar drivers face the same dilemna in their open cockpit race cars. Witness the death of IndyCardriver Justin Wilson at Pocono in 2015.

IndyCar developed a windscreen and tested itThursday at the Phoenix 1-mile oval track.

Kimi Raikkonen had tested a windscreenpreviously a year ago for F1 and reporteddistortion that was unacceptable.

The screen that IndyCar is testing is made of a proprietary material called Opticor. PPG Aerospace

similar to what the company uses to make canopiesfor fighter jets.

Scott Dixon tested the windshield throughout the day and into the night. He noted that distortion was not very bad and that he got used to it on the oval track. He also noted that it cut down on noise and buffeting from the wind tremendously, giving the car aluxurious feel. However it resulted in a warmer cockpit, a problem that would be easy to solvethough. He said it did not have any glare problems from the track lights at night.

These first tests were considered positive, butwhether any kind of cockpit protection is mandatedfor IndyCar remains to be seen.

Note - Chip Ganassi Racing has found a main sponsor to replaceTarget for Scott Dixon - PNC Bank.

Also Note - there is a new digital display for the car number behindthe drivers helmet. This new display is much brighter than beforeand multi-colored too. It will be able to display graphics - for instanceit might be used to display the driver's nation's flag during a pre-race parade lap. COOL!

Daytona 500 Qualifying

Feb - 11 - Hendrick Motorsports won another Daytona500 Pole. This year they got it with the #88 Camaro of Alex Bowman.

Starting next to Bowman is the #11 Toyota of Denny Hamlin.

Today's qualifying only locked in the first two spots forthe Daytona 500. However, the single-lap qualifyingfrom today also determines the drivers competing in the two 150-mile races on Thursday, known as the Duels. The Duels determine who will line up in the majority of spots on the starting grid for the Daytona 500.

Kevin Harvick was the fastest Ford, but qualified downin 8th.

Danica Patrick qualified 28th out of 40 for her last NASCAR race.

Alex Bowman

Phoenix Test

Feb 11 - During this past weekend’s IndyCar Series Open Test at Phoenix Raceway (that they are now calling ISM) Rahal Letterman Lanigan Racing set the fastest lap in each of the four three-hour sessions spread over Friday and Saturday, which included running at night under the lights!

“Today wasn’t a great day for me but overall we had a good day on Friday and Takuma had a great day today,” Graham Rahal said. “We tried a bunch of stuff and learned what ways to and not to go. I think Andretti cars looked strong but overall this is a positive.

Even a driver as great as four-time Verizon IndyCarSeries champion and 2008 Indianapolis 500 winner Scott Dixon needs to push the limit to see how far a new race car will go.

With the clock winding down in Saturday night’s final3-hour test session in the Indycar Open Test, Dixon’s Honda went into turn one and the back tires of the carlost traction. Dixon spun, drifted up the banking andmade minor contact with the turn two wall.

Dixon was the only driver to tag the wall in the 12 hoursof testing at the 1.022-mile short oval, although AJ Foyt Racing rookie Matheus Leist spun his car three timesover the two days.

What made this test so important is all of the drivers inthe series are trying to find out for themselves the differences with the 2018 aero package. It’s completely different from the high downforce packages that wereused when Honda and Chevrolet each had different aero kits from 2015 and 2017 and it has made the cars much “lighter” to drive. That’s because this year’s package hasat least 1,200 pounds less downforce than last year.

With less downforce, the straightaway speeds are faster, the corner speeds are lower and the cars have a tendency to dance, skip and slide on the track.

Ed Carpenter

Danica Will Race Indy 500 for ECR

Feb 14 - The news that Danica Patrick would be racing for the Ed Carpenter team leaked out a few weeksearlier than planned, but Ed says that's ok, but he doesn't have all the answers ready that he was planning to have. Currently Patrick is totally in Nascar mode as sheprepares for their biggest race - the Daytona 500.

Carpenter said he had no doubts that despite theinevitable hype and publicity surrounding Patrick – asever – he has no doubts over her sense of purpose, and that she is not just treating this as a farewell tour.

“Even though we haven’t won the 500 before, shefollows the sport and knows we put a good product on track at Indy and certainly we’ve had cars capable of winning the race. So the most important thing to all of usis to do something special.”

Carpenter hasn’t been able yet to finalize the details regarding how much track time Patrick will be granted before the race, but said he’s hoping that seven years since her last Indy 500 run, there’s a way to get her asimilar amount of testing as granted to last year’s starone-off 500 participant, Fernando Alonso.

Carpenter expects that Patrick's running in the Indy 500 will generate more questions and hype for his team aswell at other drivers and team in the paddock.

“So I’ll be there as a driver and prepared as I always am for that, and we’ll just have another ultra-popular driverin IndyCar, but on this occasion, that driver will be in one of our team’s cars.

Feb 18 - I love the start of a race, especially Formula 1.I got settled in front of the TV at 2:30pm and waitedfor the start of the Daytona 500.

And waited. And waited.

I was hoping to see Danica, in her last Nascar race, butthe broadcast seemed to be ignoring her. What I did discover was that there was a black man in the race. You wouldn't know it if you didn't tune in, as his lastname is Wallace (Think Rusty Wallace), they call him Bubba and his voice does not betray that he is black orthat he is from the south. Although he has littleexperience in Nacar's Cup series, he missed winningthe race today by an inch!

About 40 minutes later, I was in the kitchen fixinganother snack when I thought maybe I heard carsracing.

Back at the TV, I find the race had indeed started - two long lines of stocks cars were running side by side.

As the race cars approached the end of the 1st stage(1/3rd of the race), Some drivers in the front tried topass as to win the stage. This resulted in somewiggling and loss of control, banging into others andthen about a third of the field crashing into each otherand spinning around in the infield grass. I think this is considered normal for Nascar at large tracks with high banked corners, such as Daytona and Talledega.

Fox TV then televised the crash 78 times.

Much later, I saw Danica walking away smiling andsaying the team didn't have much time to prepare, andhow she now has one more race to run, but didn'tmention the INDY 500 or INDYCAR. She was nodoubt under orders from Nascar not to mention anyrivals.

I didn't see what happened to end her race. I musthave been in the kitchen again or napping.

Instead of the quick up and down wailing of an F1engine at it goes through the gears in it's breathtaking changes in speed, the stock cars constant speed aroundthe big oval results in just one long monotonous drone. (Perhaps the reason for my continual falling asleep.)

While looking for photosfrom today's race, Idiscovered that Nascar has a hispanic driver as well as aAfrican-American.

However, they awarded a diversity award to driverJoey Logano, a white kid from Connecticut.

I don't think Nascar quitegets the whole diversitything.

Fox intermixes that noise for television viewers aboutevery 20 seconds with a rapid "Fppt, Fppt, Fppt, Fppt" sound that is captured, I suppose, by a microphone near the track, as a handful of cars zip by. Or perhapsJeff Gordon, who now works in the booth, hadbeans for lunch.

I'm not sure at what point the race became just a long single file snake of cars running in circles, but I noticedit after the 2nd stage. Nothing happened, no one triedto pass. I may have taken a nap, but luckily awoke to catch the end of the race. I think there was a crash with2 laps to go. I was drowsy but I thought they said there was some type of "overtime" happening.At any rate, it was the last lap and Aric Almirolaseemed to be easily in the lead, when the guy behindhim, Austin Dillon, came up and hit his back bumper, which sent the Almirola into the wall. Dillon sped towardthe finish line, side by side with Bubba Wallace and apparently crossed the finish line first. Dillon wasdriving the famous #3 (Dale Earnhardt) car.

To celebrate, the driver and team dove face first into the infield grass, as if they were expecting to slide. Well they didn't slide. Had someone forgotten to wet or oil thegrass down for them? I hope there was some traditionthat I don't know about that was going on.

I did learn one thing though - timing is important at Daytona. Unlike other forms of racing, you do not want to be leading the race at the end, but holding back andthen wrecking the winner before the last turn. However,with "Overtime" apparently the last turn, is not neccessarily the last turn in Nascar racing. With bumping, 3 race winners, playoffs and overtime, Nascar is like a romantic relationship - it's complicated.

Legends Day Concert

Feb 20 - Legends Day at the Indy Speedway is on Saturday, May 26th -- the day before the Indy 500.

While there are no race cars on track this day, fans come out anyway to see the sights, get autographs, attend the public driver's meeting and a memorabilia show.

The speedway began having famous country music artistsperform a few years ago.

This May Sam Hunt will headline in the 5th Legends Day concert. Canaan Smith and Filmore will serve as opening acts for the concert, which starts at 3:30 p.m. on the Firestone Stage inside Turn 4 of the IMS oval.

Tickets for the show are $35 to $75, but the price will go up March 1. A limited number of VIP tickets are available for $250 too.